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Companies in the United States cut back on hiring last month while asking
employees to work longer hours, according to jobs figures that cast a shadow
over hopes for an American-led economic rebound.

Bosses took on 88,000 people in March, the smallest rise since last summer and
less than half the 200,000 forecast by Wall Street analysts. While the
official US unemployment rate fell to 7.6 per cent, this was a result of a
large number of people leaving the jobs market. The labour force
participation rate slumped to 63.6 per cent — the lowest since 1978 — as
hundreds of thousands